SIR LANCELOT’S CRYPTIC CLUES

ACROSS

1 New wife takes a short time to turn to sedative (7) 5 Pause for every bung (7) 10 Soon to get a French veto (4) 11 Hop off to get table to snap (10) 12 Say again – queen has a gun (8) 13 Even set out to waste day (6) 14 Graduate gets additive with ultraviolet colour (5) 16 Lecture points to parcel’s destination (9) 19 Ease by rewriting a vile tale (9) 21 It speaks of the end of a river (5) 23 Braggart, say, is to be corrected (6) 25 Intend to find occasion during intermission (8) 27 Series by vets about underwear (6,4) 28 Flavouring that makes money (4) 29 Destiny has to provide sails for warship (7) 30 Find relative at a railway store (7)

DOWN

2 Remove soap from broken siren (5) 3 Steer chap to artistic output (9) 4 Stand-in has a job holding record (6) 6 Rust rose out of clothing (8) 7 Quiet desire for elimination (5) 8 Useful to extend pie recipe (9) 9 Unpleasant old religious man concealed outside (6) 15 Large reptile running at gorilla (9) 17 Left in ship with fellow outdoor type (9) 18 It’s difficult, drunk, to be patient (3,5) 20 Moderate one’s mood (6) 22 Jog in a strange trance (6) 24 Part of cake makes yours truly croon audibly (5) 26 Youngster is of lesser importance, we hear (5)

TO ENTER: Complete the Crossword and count how many times the letter ‘i’ appears in the grid. Then text LANCELOT followed by a space, your answer, name and postcode to 65700, eg LANCELOT 9 John Smith W8 5TT. Texts cost £1 plus your standard network rate. To enter by phone, call 0905 652 2140 and leave your answer and details. Calls cost £1 plus your telephone company’s network access charge. Entries will be accepted until 11.59pm on Friday. More details can be found below. Phone and text Helpline 0808 272 0808.

iSpy winner February 5 : Raymond Gilmore, of Newtownabbey, Co Antrim. Last week’s answer: 12